Smart construction objects (SCOs) : towards a new paradigm of smart construction

Abstract

Smart construction has been advocated in recent years as one of the most promising directions to alleviate the problems, e.g., delayed delivery, unsatisfactory quality, and stagnant productivity, which are plaguing the global construction industry. Nevertheless, despite the growing interests, there is widespread frustration in advancing smart construction. In contrast with the prolific development of smart systems in other industries, the fundamental concepts, definitions, and paradigms of smart construction are yet to be fully explored. There is lacking of theoretical lucidity of smart construction. Even there are some successful cases of smart construction, most of them are developed in a piecemeal fashion for a specific trade with little generalizability. In addition, most smart systems introduced from other industries are disruptive to the existing construction working practice, resulting in the reluctance of practitioners to harness their full potential. A new paradigm of smart construction, which can innovatively accommodate the complex nature of this heterogeneous sector, is highly desired. It is against this backdrop that this doctoral research is initiated to look at a challenging issue - a general paradigm of smart construction - rather than developing a specific smart construction solution per se.

This research aims at articulating a canonical concept, smart construction objects (SCOs), as the fundamental elements towards a new paradigm of smart construction. Instead of continuously inventing and bringing in new artifacts to construction, this new paradigm advocates achieving smart construction by turning existing construction resources into SCOs. A SCO must have three core properties, namely, awareness, communicativeness, and autonomy, which can be combined to perform a construction task smartly. In so doing, it is possible to customize general SCOs to accommodate the complexity of construction projects.

This research is underpinned by critical realism and follows an abductive reasoning logic where a rigor mixed-method strategy is adopted. Firstly, based on literature-based discovery, the definition, core properties, and functions of SCOs as well as a multi-layered SCOs-enabled smart management system are proposed. Next, SCOs and the proposed system are tested and evaluated through two progressive cases in the project practice in Hong Kong. The mixed methods approach is unfolded in a reiterative fashion. Triangulations of literature, theoretical debates, and practices have been repeated throughout the research to calibrate and substantiate the concepts towards a new paradigm of smart construction.

The outcomes of this research offer profound academic and practical value. This study enhances the theoretical lucidity by making the first attempt to systematically define SCOs with their core properties. The elegance of SCOs is also reflected in the fact that they are made on the basis of existing construction without changing their existing appearance and functionalities. In this way, SCOs could be adopted and implemented without radically changing the prevailing construction practices. The multi-layered framework of the SCOs-enabled smart management system portrays a panoramic picture of smart construction, based on which SCOs could be operated in the project practice. The customizable system architecture provides a clear direction and sufficient details for interested researchers in replicating and enriching the work.